“...Slavery was the principal driver that led to CW1
those who would have it otherwise are using the fallacy...”
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The issue at the time was not about the “rightness or the wrongness” of slavery.
The rightness or wrongness of the use of slave labor
was not a federal issue and the use of slave labor
was not prohibited by the constitution.
The prohibitions and restrictions of the use of slave labor
in the new states and territories being added in the west
were viewed as extra-constitutional,
so the southern states viewed “the contract” as having already been broken.
Neither slavery nor secession were prohibited by the constitution.
Respectfully disagree. It WAS about slavery - among other things. But slavery was first and foremost. You’re obviously correct about slavery not being prohibited by the constitution. If that were not the case there never would have been a union to begin with. But that in no way contradicts the statement that the civil war was fought over slavery.
If you want to make the argument that Lincoln and the north acted extra-legally and extra-constitutionally - no argument from me.
If you want to say that slavery was not the fundamental issue dividing the north and the south - from say 1840 to 1860 - then you’re welcome to your opinion but the facts say otherwise.
Fleming reminds us that politics is not a matter of rational calculation. The minds of an influential minority in both and South were inflamed by clashing ideologies. After the Nat Turner Rebellion, many in the South no longer regarded slavery as a necessary evil but a positive good. The mainline churches split over the issue, and after the Mexican War, the issue of slavery in the territories caused a secessionist movement to arise in the South. As a Texan, I have always wondered what might have happened if Sam Houston, a protege of Jackson and a cunning politician of the first water, had been elected President in 1852 instead of the feckless doughface Franklin Pierce. Certainly there would have been no Jefferson Davis in the Cabinet. Certainly he would not have signed a bill that gave the transcontinental Railway route to Steve Douglas’ supporters, not at the expense of opening Kansas to slavery.